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Yemi Osinbajo believes that the transition to clean energy should be just and equitable for developing countries.
- The Vice president stated that adopting gas will save countless lives and accelerate the transition from kerosene and charcoal fuels across the continent.
Nigeria’s vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo has stated at the Columbia University’s Global Energy summit that developing countries need a just energy transition. Prof. Osinbajo noted that just transition is necessary for sustainable development and poverty eradication enshrined in global treaties, including the Paris agreement.
He made this statement on the heels of the increasing ban on the financing of fossil fuel investments by several European countries and development finance institutions. He also pointed out the pressure on the African Development Bank to halt funding for such projects on the continent.
Osinbajo noted that it is not equitable that developed countries have made gas a pillar of their decarbonisation strategy, including actively developing gas in African countries while limiting financing for domestic gas projects in Africa.
“Limiting the development of gas projects poses dire challenges for African nations while making an insignificant dent in global emissions…to completely end all fossil investments, including investments in natural gas is not in the interest of anyone.”
Osinbajo noted that the transition to gas from fuels such as charcoal and kerosene would save millions of lives across Africa, strengthen the electricity situation in many countries, and help renewable energy growth.
The vice president noted that except for South Africa, the remaining one billion people in sub-Saharan Africa are serviced by a power generation capacity of just 81GW, contributing less than 1 per cent of cumulative co2 emissions, i.e. about 0.8-1 tonne of CO2 per capita. He notes that tripling electricity consumption will only add about 0.6 per cent to global emissions, compared to the US, whose emissions stands at 15.5 tonnes per capita or 6.5 tonnes per capita in Europe.